Book Review Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY The book, Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy, by Henry A. Giroux, examines several vital questions in the field of education. Giroux’s main focus in the book, as he clearly states in his introduction, is to examine the question, “how can we make schooling meaningful so as to make it critical and how can we make it critical as to make it emancipatory?” (p. 2) Thus Giroux's primary focus in Teachers as Intellectuals examines whose best interests school systems are attempting to meet in the way in which they currently function; why schooling is the way it is today; the pedagogical practices that schools implement and why; the results of today’s schooling and its impact on teachers and students; and finally, how implementing critical pedagogy as a from of cultural politics can create a more democratic society. Giroux begins his study by evaluating how schools are currently operating. According to Giroux (1988), school systems have become factories that do nothing more than produce students who can somehow contribute to society in an industrial or economic sense. Giroux argues that, instead of moving students towards developing vital and necessary critical thinking skills so that they can “read” the world critically and question the world around them, schools simply teach students how to be members of society—basically how to get a job—and how to adhere to the “norms” that exist.“Schools are not merely instructional sites but also sites where the culture of the dominant society is learned and where students experience the difference between those status and class distinctions that exist in the larger society.” (p. 5-6) Giroux’s argument is that schools, particularly teachers, should assume a role that teaches students how to achieve “critical consciousness.” This idea, often associated with Paulo Friere (who provides a brief introduction in this book), is a form of emancipatory learning that teaches its students to think critically (i.e.: critical pedagogy) and challenge the ideas of the dominant. Giroux, like Friere before him, supports the ideas associated with emancipatory learning. Giroux argues in his book that it is the job of the school to implement curriculum that teaches critical thinking, thus developing a form of emancipatory learning. Giroux asks, when schools choose a particular curriculum, how and why do they choose? For whose best interests are they serving? And how do they construct the curriculum so that the “knowledge” that they are attempting to “teach” is “learned?” There are several pedagogies that Giroux examines in an attempt to answer these questions. One of these pedagogical practices is found in Mortimer Adler’s The Paideia Proposal.Giroux summaries Adler’s pedagogical theory by saying that, “Adler calls for the schools to implement a core course of subjects in all twelve years of public schooling.”Within the core courses, students are expected to master certain skills in a “predetermined” form of knowledge. Giroux argues that “there is no mention of how such knowledge gets chosen, whose interests it represents, or why students might be interested in learning it.” (p. 89) To support his argument, Giroux quotes an average high school student: [Schools should teach you to realize yourself, but they don’t. They teach you to be a book. It’s easy to become a book, but to become yourself you’ve got to be given various choices and be helped to look at the choices. You’ve got to learn that, otherwise you’re not prepared for the outside world.] (p. 89)
Giroux (1988) says that the experiences of this high school student illustrate why the practices in schooling today are not successful, and it is for this reason that schools need to implement a more critical approach to teaching.
REFLECTION The solution to the problem in today’s public school system, Giroux asserts, is to utilize a form of teaching that Giroux calls critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach that attempts to teach students higher levels of thinking so that they can question and challenge the world around them and the beliefs and practices that dominate. In his book, Giroux claims that it is up to the teacher to act as “intellectual” (as per the title of the book), and train students in the ways in which to practice and establish critical pedagogy. Then, from their schooling, students can enter society as productive members who think, act, assert, and challenge the world, society views, and politics. Giroux says, [A critical pedagogy…would focus on the study of curriculum not merely as a matter of self-cultivation or the mimicry of specific forms of language and knowledge. It would stress forms of learning and knowledge aimed at providing a critical understanding of how social reality works; it would focus on how certain dimensions of such a reality are sustained; it would focus on the nature of its formative processes; and it would also focus on how those aspects of it that are related to the logic of domination can be changed.](p. 184)
In other words, curriculum that is centered on critical pedagogy will teach students how to achieve critical consciousness, and the students will then take that way of thinking into society. Thus, critical pedagogy not only becomes a form of teaching, it becomes a form of cultural thinking. Giroux’s ideas, as previously mentioned, are very similar to those of Paulo Friere. As we have learned in class, Friere was an advocate for the lower classes in society. He believed that if the less dominant classes would learn to question and challenge the norms of society, then the struggle for power would change. The root of the lower classes’ oppression, Friere argued, was that they accepted what was “given” to them as the “norm” and they did not “critically assess”the world around them. Giroux, in his book, maintains the same argument as Friere, but instead of aiming his argument as the lower, less powerful members of society, Giroux argues that it is schools that need to teach the ideas of critical pedagogy. Furthermore, it is the TEACHER, as the leader of the classroom, who needs to be the foundation for which emancipatory learning takes place.
FINAL THOUGHTS So, how does the teacher assume the role of intellectual in order to teach students to think critically without simply teaching them what to think and say (i.e.-regurgitate information) as goes against Giroux’s entire argument. The key, according to Giroux’s ideas in Teachers as Intellectuals, is to teach students how to move beyond what they already think and know. Students must be taught how to question the accuracy of any given situation, practice, belief, or fact. Then, according to Giroux, they must take whatever it is that they are questioning and/or examining by placing it in a relationship with other aspects of life or the world to see how it compares critically. This is a noble thought in context, but in reality, Giroux’s idea, I believe, is not feasible. For one, not every person, every member of society is going to achieve a higher level of critical thinking as described by Giroux (and Friere). One important note that Giroux does make in his book is that he is not trying to define what “critical thinking” means in this book.This point, I think, is important when evaluating levels of critical thinking skills expected from individuals. It is not that all people are not CAPABLE of thinking critically, especially if they are taught to do so. However, there are people that, even when given the tools necessary to think and learn, they simply choose not too. As a classroom teacher, I can testify to this personally.I can structure a lesson plan in such a way that a students must think about, analyze, dig deep, and/or evaluate what they are reading, what it means, is it right or wrong and WHY, but if student’s do not actively participate—if they do not actively THINK—then the lesson is meaningless. It may not be that they are not capable of deeper, critical levels of thinking—it may be simply that they do not want to “think about it.” They choose not too, for whatever reason (don’t care, too lazy, etc.). From this perspective, although Giroux’s argument is noble, it becomes fruitless. Without student participation, without self-reflection on the student’s part, the idea of critical pedagogy as a form of curriculum in the school system, cannot exist. Perhaps it is cynical to think so, but I am not sure that many people want to put forth the effort, mentally and physically, that it takes to think, especially at a level as high and as critically as what Giroux describes. Teachers as Intellectuals, I believe, does provide some valuable ideas for anyone interested in examining new, deeper ways to teach critical thinking skills.I would recommend this book to other teachers, although I thought the language was a somewhat difficult to understand. Like Friere “talking” to the lower classes in society, I think that Giroux’s could reach a wider audience if he would simply his language. If the ideas behind Giroux’s book is to argue in favor of teaching society how to be critical thinkers, it would help if ALL members of society could understand what Giroux is arguing, and because of his language and use of professional jargon throughout his book, many people not connected to the educational world would not understand what Giroux is advocating for. I found a dictionary to be a very helpful and constant companion while reading this book, but many people would not put forth the effort to look up as many words as I did in order to understand what Giroux was saying. From this perspective I would label the book unreadable to the vast majority of society, and that, unfortunately, is not going to help Giroux’s arguments. In conclusion, I would summarize my thoughts on Teachers as Intellectuals by saying that, while Giroux as many noble ideas that he argues in his book, many are, I think, too radical to be productive. If Giroux’s ultimate idea—a society that continually questioned the norms and accepted notions—was constantly being questions and rearranged, then would we not then live in a world that was in constant disarray? Doesn’t there always need to be some form of power, or government, in place so as to avoid anarchy? If we (society) question the norm in place of something else, then doesn’t that something else become the norm, and the cycle just continues and continues? And if it does, then what is the point of what Giroux is arguing anyway, because then wouldn’t the argument last forever and ever? I am not sure about the answer to all these questions, and I am not sure that Giroux is sure either, but I think that is the point of what his whole idea behind continuing to think critically is about. Mainly, that we (society) should continue to just question and explore and dig.
Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
The book, Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy, by Henry A. Giroux, examines several vital questions in the field of education. Giroux’s main focus in the book, as he clearly states in his introduction, is to examine the question, “how can we make schooling meaningful so as to make it critical and how can we make it critical as to make it emancipatory?” (p. 2) Thus Giroux's primary focus in Teachers as Intellectuals examines whose best interests school systems are attempting to meet in the way in which they currently function; why schooling is the way it is today; the pedagogical practices that schools implement and why; the results of today’s schooling and its impact on teachers and students; and finally, how implementing critical pedagogy as a from of cultural politics can create a more democratic society.
Giroux begins his study by evaluating how schools are currently operating. According to Giroux (1988), school systems have become factories that do nothing more than produce students who can somehow contribute to society in an industrial or economic sense. Giroux argues that, instead of moving students towards developing vital and necessary critical thinking skills so that they can “read” the world critically and question the world around them, schools simply teach students how to be members of society—basically how to get a job—and how to adhere to the “norms” that exist.“Schools are not merely instructional sites but also sites where the culture of the dominant society is learned and where students experience the difference between those status and class distinctions that exist in the larger society.” (p. 5-6) Giroux’s argument is that schools, particularly teachers, should assume a role that teaches students how to achieve “critical consciousness.” This idea, often associated with Paulo Friere (who provides a brief introduction in this book), is a form of emancipatory learning that teaches its students to think critically (i.e.: critical pedagogy) and challenge the ideas of the dominant.
Giroux, like Friere before him, supports the ideas associated with emancipatory learning. Giroux argues in his book that it is the job of the school to implement curriculum that teaches critical thinking, thus developing a form of emancipatory learning. Giroux asks, when schools choose a particular curriculum, how and why do they choose? For whose best interests are they serving? And how do they construct the curriculum so that the “knowledge” that they are attempting to “teach” is “learned?”
There are several pedagogies that Giroux examines in an attempt to answer these questions. One of these pedagogical practices is found in Mortimer Adler’s The Paideia Proposal.Giroux summaries Adler’s pedagogical theory by saying that, “Adler calls for the schools to implement a core course of subjects in all twelve years of public schooling.”Within the core courses, students are expected to master certain skills in a “predetermined” form of knowledge. Giroux argues that “there is no mention of how such knowledge gets chosen, whose interests it represents, or why students might be interested in learning it.” (p. 89) To support his argument, Giroux quotes an average high school student:
[Schools should teach you to realize yourself, but they don’t.
They teach you to be a book. It’s easy to become a book, but to
become yourself you’ve got to be given various choices and be helped
to look at the choices. You’ve got to learn that, otherwise you’re not prepared for the outside world.] (p. 89)
Giroux (1988) says that the experiences of this high school student illustrate why the practices in schooling today are not successful, and it is for this reason that schools need to implement a more critical approach to teaching.
REFLECTION
The solution to the problem in today’s public school system, Giroux asserts, is to utilize a form of teaching that Giroux calls critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach that attempts to teach students higher levels of thinking so that they can question and challenge the world around them and the beliefs and practices that dominate. In his book, Giroux claims that it is up to the teacher to act as “intellectual” (as per the title of the book), and train students in the ways in which to practice and establish critical pedagogy. Then, from their schooling, students can enter society as productive members who think, act, assert, and challenge the world, society views, and politics. Giroux says,
[A critical pedagogy…would focus on the study of curriculum
not merely as a matter of self-cultivation or the mimicry of
specific forms of language and knowledge. It would stress
forms of learning and knowledge aimed at providing a
critical understanding of how social reality works; it would
focus on how certain dimensions of such a reality are
sustained; it would focus on the nature of its formative
processes; and it would also focus on how those aspects
of it that are related to the logic of domination can
be changed.](p. 184)
In other words, curriculum that is centered on critical pedagogy will teach students how to achieve critical consciousness, and the students will then take that way of thinking into society. Thus, critical pedagogy not only becomes a form of teaching, it becomes a form of cultural thinking.
Giroux’s ideas, as previously mentioned, are very similar to those of Paulo Friere. As we have learned in class, Friere was an advocate for the lower classes in society. He believed that if the less dominant classes would learn to question and challenge the norms of society, then the struggle for power would change. The root of the lower classes’ oppression, Friere argued, was that they accepted what was “given” to them as the “norm” and they did not “critically assess”the world around them. Giroux, in his book, maintains the same argument as Friere, but instead of aiming his argument as the lower, less powerful members of society, Giroux argues that it is schools that need to teach the ideas of critical pedagogy. Furthermore, it is the TEACHER, as the leader of the classroom, who needs to be the foundation for which emancipatory learning takes place.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So, how does the teacher assume the role of intellectual in order to teach students to think critically without simply teaching them what to think and say (i.e.-regurgitate information) as goes against Giroux’s entire argument. The key, according to Giroux’s ideas in Teachers as Intellectuals, is to teach students how to move beyond what they already think and know. Students must be taught how to question the accuracy of any given situation, practice, belief, or fact. Then, according to Giroux, they must take whatever it is that they are questioning and/or examining by placing it in a relationship with other aspects of life or the world to see how it compares critically.
This is a noble thought in context, but in reality, Giroux’s idea, I believe, is not feasible. For one, not every person, every member of society is going to achieve a higher level of critical thinking as described by Giroux (and Friere). One important note that Giroux does make in his book is that he is not trying to define what “critical thinking” means in this book.This point, I think, is important when evaluating levels of critical thinking skills expected from individuals. It is not that all people are not CAPABLE of thinking critically, especially if they are taught to do so. However, there are people that, even when given the tools necessary to think and learn, they simply choose not too. As a classroom teacher, I can testify to this personally.I can structure a lesson plan in such a way that a students must think about, analyze, dig deep, and/or evaluate what they are reading, what it means, is it right or wrong and WHY, but if student’s do not actively participate—if they do not actively THINK—then the lesson is meaningless. It may not be that they are not capable of deeper, critical levels of thinking—it may be simply that they do not want to “think about it.” They choose not too, for whatever reason (don’t care, too lazy, etc.). From this perspective, although Giroux’s argument is noble, it becomes fruitless. Without student participation, without self-reflection on the student’s part, the idea of critical pedagogy as a form of curriculum in the school system, cannot exist. Perhaps it is cynical to think so, but I am not sure that many people want to put forth the effort, mentally and physically, that it takes to think, especially at a level as high and as critically as what Giroux describes.
Teachers as Intellectuals, I believe, does provide some valuable ideas for anyone interested in examining new, deeper ways to teach critical thinking skills.I would recommend this book to other teachers, although I thought the language was a somewhat difficult to understand. Like Friere “talking” to the lower classes in society, I think that Giroux’s could reach a wider audience if he would simply his language. If the ideas behind Giroux’s book is to argue in favor of teaching society how to be critical thinkers, it would help if ALL members of society could understand what Giroux is arguing, and because of his language and use of professional jargon throughout his book, many people not connected to the educational world would not understand what Giroux is advocating for. I found a dictionary to be a very helpful and constant companion while reading this book, but many people would not put forth the effort to look up as many words as I did in order to understand what Giroux was saying. From this perspective I would label the book unreadable to the vast majority of society, and that, unfortunately, is not going to help Giroux’s arguments.
In conclusion, I would summarize my thoughts on Teachers as Intellectuals by saying that, while Giroux as many noble ideas that he argues in his book, many are, I think, too radical to be productive. If Giroux’s ultimate idea—a society that continually questioned the norms and accepted notions—was constantly being questions and rearranged, then would we not then live in a world that was in constant disarray? Doesn’t there always need to be some form of power, or government, in place so as to avoid anarchy? If we (society) question the norm in place of something else, then doesn’t that something else become the norm, and the cycle just continues and continues? And if it does, then what is the point of what Giroux is arguing anyway, because then wouldn’t the argument last forever and ever? I am not sure about the answer to all these questions, and I am not sure that Giroux is sure either, but I think that is the point of what his whole idea behind continuing to think critically is about. Mainly, that we (society) should continue to just question and explore and dig.